The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky -- Vol. 2

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 731 STILL GREATER DIFFICULTIES.

§ V.
ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES.

IT is argued that the Universal Evolution, otherwise, the
gradual development of species in all the kingdoms of nature,
works by uniform laws. This is admitted, and the law enforced
far more strictly in Esoteric than in modern Science. But we are
told also, that it is equally a law that "development works
from the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to the
more complicated, by incessant changes, small in themselves, but
constantly accumulating in the required direction." It is
from the infinitesimally small that the comparatively gigantic
species are produced.

Esoteric Science agrees with it, but adds that this law applies
only to what is known to it as the Primary Creation --
the evolution of worlds from primordial atoms, and the pre-primordial
ATOM, at the first differentiation of the
former; and that during the period of cyclic evolution in space
and time, this law is limited and works only in the lower kingdoms.
It did so work during the first geological periods, from simple
to complex, on the rough material surviving from the relics of
the Third Round, which relics are projected into objectivity when
terrestrial activity recommences.

No more than Science, does esoteric philosophy admit design
or "special creation." It rejects every claim
to the "miraculous," and accepts nothing outside the
uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it teaches a cyclic
law, a double stream of force (or spirit) and of matter, which,
starting from the neutral centre of Being, develops in
its cyclic progress and incessant transformations. The primitive
germ from which all vertebrate life has developed throughout the
ages, being distinct from the primitive germ from which the vegetable
and the animal life have evolved, there are side laws whose work
is determined by the conditions in which the materials to be worked
upon are found by them, and of which Science -- physiology and
anthropology especially -- seems to be little aware. Its votaries
speak of that "primitive germ," and maintain that it
is shown beyond any doubt that the "design" and the
"designer,"if there be any, in the case
of man, with the wonderful structure of his limbs, and his hand
especially, "must be placed very much farther back, and (the
design) is, in fact, involved in the primitive germ," from
which not only all vertebrate life, but, "probably all life,
animal and vegetable, have been slowly developed" (p.
94 of "Modern Science and Modern Thought").

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 732 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

This is as true of the "primitive germ" as it is false
that that "germ" is only "very much farther back"
than man is; for it is at an immeasurable and inconceivable distance
(in time, though not in space) from the origin even of
our Solar system. As the Hindu philosophy very justly teaches,
the "Aniyamsam Aniyasam,"can be known
only through false notions. It is the "many" that proceed
from the ONE -- the living spiritual germs or centres of forces
-- eachin a septenary form, which first generate,
and then give the PRIMARY IMPULSE to the law of evolution and
gradual slow development.

Limiting the teaching strictly to this, our earth, it may be shown
that, as the ethereal forms of the first Men are first projected
on seven zones by seven Dhyan-Chohanic centres of Force,
so there are centres of creative power for every ROOT or parent
species of the host of forms of vegetable and animal life. This
is, again, no "special creation," nor is there any "Design,"
except in the general "ground-plan" worked out by the
universal law. But there are certainly "designers,"
though these are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute
sense of the term. They are simply Builders, or Masons,
working under the impulse given them by the ever-to-be-unknown
(on our plane) Master Mason -- the ONE LIFE
and Law. Belonging to this sphere, they have no hand in, or possibility
of working on any other, during the present Manvantara, at any
rate. That they work in cycles and on a strictly geometrical and
mathematical scale of progression, is what the extinct animal
species amply demonstrate; that they act by design in the
details of minor lives (of side animal issues, etc.) is what natural
history has sufficient evidence for. In the creation of
new species, departing sometimes very widely from the Parent stock,
as in the great variety of the genus Felis -- like the
lynx, the tiger, the cat, etc. -- it is the "designers"
who direct the new evolution by adding to, or depriving the species
of certain appendages, either needed or becoming useless in the
new environments. Thus, when we say that Nature provides
for every animal and plant, whether large or small, we speak correctly.
For, it is those terrestrial spirits of Nature, who form the aggregated
Nature; which, if it fails occasionally in its design, is neither
to be considered blind, nor to be taxed with the failure; since,
belonging to a differentiated sum of qualities and attributes,
it is in virtue of that alone conditioned and imperfect.

Were there no such thing as evolutionary cycles, an eternal spiral
progress into matter with a proportionate obscuration of
spirit -- though the two are one -- followed by an inverse ascent
into spirit and the defeat of matter -- active and passive by
turn -- how explain the discoveries of zoology and geology? How
is it that, on the dictum of authoritative science, one can trace
the animal life from the mollusc up

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 733 THE "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" OF
SCIENCE.

to the great Sea Dragon, from the smallest land-worm up again
to the gigantic animals of the Tertiary Period; and that the latter
were once crossed is shown by the fact of all those species decreasing,
dwindling down and being dwarfed. If the seeming process of
development working from the less to the more perfect, and from
the simpler to the more complex, were a universal law indeed,
instead of being a very imperfect generalization of a mere secondary
nature in the great Cosmic process, and if there were no such
cycles as those claimed, then the Mesozoic fauna and flora ought
to change places with the latest Neolithic. It is the Plesiosauri
and the Ichthyosauri that we ought to find developing from the
present sea and river reptiles, instead of giving place to their
dwarfed modern analogies. It is, again, our old friend, the good-tempered
elephant, that would be the fossil antediluvian ancestor, and
the mammoth of the Pliocene age who would be in the menagerie;the megalonyx and the gigantic megatherium would be found
instead of the lazy sloth in the forests of South America, in
which the colossal ferns of the carboniferous periods would take
the place of moss and present trees -- dwarfs, even the giants
of California, in comparison with the Titan-trees of past geological
periods. Surely the organisms of the megasthenian world of the
Tertiary and the Mesozoic Ages must have been more complex
and perfect than those of the microsthenian plants and animals
of the present age? The Dryopithecus, for instance, is found more
perfect anatomically, more fit for a greater development of brain
power, than the modern gorilla or gibbon? How is this, then? Are
we to believe that the constitution of all those colossal land
and sea-dragons, of the gigantic flying reptiles, was not far
more developed and complex than the anatomy of the lizards, turtles,
crocodiles, and even of the whales -- in short, all those animals
we are acquainted with?

Let us admit, however, for argument's sake, that all those cycles,
races, septenary forms of evolution and the tutti quanti of
esoteric teaching, are no better than a delusion and a snare.
Let us agree with Science and say that man, instead of being an
imprisoned "Spirit," and his vehicle, the shell or
body, a gradually perfected and now complete mechanism for material
and terrestrial uses, as claimed by the Occultists -- is simply
a more developed animal, whose primal form emerged from one and
the same primitive germ on this earth, as the flying dragon and
the gnat, the whale and the amoeba, the crocodile and the frog,
etc., etc. In this case, he must have passed through the identical
developments and through the same process of growth as all the
other mammals? If man is an animal, andnothing more,
a highly intellectual ex-brute, he should be privileged,
at least, and allowed to have been a gigantic mammal of his kind,
a

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 734 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

meganthropos in his day. It is just this, that esoteric
science shows as having taken place in the first three rounds,
and in this, as in most other things, it is more logical and consistent
than modern science. It classifies the human body with the brute
creation, and maintains it in the path of animal evolution, from
first to last, while science leaves man a parentless orphan born
of sires unknown, an "unspecialized skeleton" truly!
And this mistake is due to a stubborn rejection of the doctrine
of cycles.

-------

A.

THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE MAMMALIA:
SCIENCE AND THE

ESOTERIC PHYLOGENY.

Having dealt almost exclusively with the question of the origin
of Man in the foregoing criticism of Western Evolutionism, it
may not be amiss to define the position of the Occultists with
regard to the differentiation of species. The pre-human fauna
and flora have been already generally dealt with in the Commentary
on the Stanzas, and the truth of much of modern biological speculation
admitted, e.g., the derivation of birds from reptiles,
the partial truth of "natural selection," and
the transformation theory generally. It now remains to clear up
the mystery of the origin of those first mammalian fauna which
M. de Quatrefages so brilliantly endeavours to prove as contemporary
with the Homo primigenius of the Secondary Age.

The somewhat complicated problem relating to the "Origin
of Species," -- more especially of the varied groups of fossil
or existing mammalian fauna -- will be rendered less obscure by
the aid of a diagram. It will then be apparent to what extent
the "Factors of Organic Evolution," relied upon by Western
biologists,* are to be considered as

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* The Darwinian theory has been so strained, that even Huxley
was forced at one time to deprecate its occasional degeneration
into "fanaticism." Oscar Schmidt presents a good instance
of a thinker who unconsciously exaggerates the worth of an hypothesis.
He admits ("The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,"
p. 158), that "natural selection" "is in some cases
. . . inadequate, . . . in others . . . not requisite,
as the solution of the formation of species is found in other
natural conditions." He also asserts the "intermediate
grades are . . . wanting, which would entitle us to
infer with certainty the direct transition from unplacental to
placental mammals" (p. 271); that "we are referred entirely
to conjecture andinference for the origin of the mammals"
(p. 268); and the repeated failures of the framers of "hypothetical
pedigrees,"more especially of Haeckel. Nevertheless
he asserts on p. 194, that "what we have gained by the Doctrine
of Descent based on the theory of selection is the KNOWLEDGE of
the connection of organisms as 'consanguineous beings.' "
Knowledge in the face of the above-cited concessions, is, then,
the synonym for conjecture and theory only?

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 735 CONJECTURES ARE NOT FACTS.

adequate to meet the facts. The line of demarcation between etherospiritual,
astral and physical evolution must be drawn. Perhaps, if Darwinians
deigned to consider the possibility of the second process, they
would no longer have to lament the fact that "we are referred
to conjecture and inference for the origin of the Mammals"!!
(The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 268, by Professor
O. Schmidt.) At present the admitted chasm between the systems
of reproduction of the oviparous vertebrates and mammalia, constitutes
a hopeless crux to those thinkers who, with the Evolutionists,
seek to link all existing organic forms in a continuous line of
descent.

Let us take -- exempli gratia -- the case of the ungulate
mammals. "In no other division," it is said, "do
we possess such abundant fossil material." So much progress
has been made in this direction, that in some instances the intermediate
links between the modern and Eocene ungulates have been unearthed;
a notable example being that of the complete proof of the derivation
of the present one-toed horse from the three-toed Anchitherium
of the old Tertiary. This standard of comparison between Western
Biology and the Eastern doctrine could not, therefore, be improved
upon. The pedigree here utilized, as embodying the views of scientists
in general, is that of Schmidt based on the exhaustive researches
of Rutimeyer. Its approximate accuracy -- from the standpoint
of evolutionism -- leaves little to be desired: --

UNGULATE MAMMALS.

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 736 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

The midway point of evolution. Science comes to a standstill.
"Theroot to which these two families lead back
IS UNKNOWN" (Schmidt).

No. I. represents the realm explored by Western Evolutionists,
the area in which climatic influences, "natural selection,"
and all the other physical causes of organic differentiation
are present. Biology and palaeontology find their province here
in investigating the many physical agencies which contribute so
largely, as shown by Darwin, Spencer and others, to the segregation
of species. But even in this domain the sub-conscious workings
of the Dhyan-Chohanic wisdom are at the root of all the
"ceaseless striving towards perfection," though its
influence is vastly modified by those purely material causes which
de Quatrefages terms the "milieux"and
Spencer the "Environment."

The "midway point of evolution" is that stage where
the astral prototypes definitely begin to pass into the
physical, and thus become subject to the differentiating agencies
now operative around us. Physical causation supervenes immediately
on the assumption of "coats of skin" -- i.e.,
the physiological equipment in general. The forms of Men and mammalia
previous to the separation of sexes* are woven out of astral matter,
and possess a structure utterly unlike that of the physical organisms,
which eat, drink, digest, etc., etc., etc. The known physiological
contrivances in organisms were almost entirely evolved subsequently
to the incipient physicalization of the 7 Root-Types out of the
astral -- during the "midway halt" between the two planes
of existence. Hardly had the "ground-plan" of evolution
been limned out in these ancestral types, than the influence of
the accessory terrestrial laws, familiar to us, supervened, resulting
in the whole crop of mammalian species. AEons of slow differentiation
were, however, required to effect this end.

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* Bear in mind, please, that though the animals -- mammalians
included -- have all been evolved after and partially from
man's cast-off tissues, still, as a far lower being, the mammalian
animal became placental and separated far earlier than man.

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 737 THE UNITY OF TYPE.

No. II. represents the domain of the purely astral
prototypes previous to their descent into (gross) matter. Astral
matter, it must be noted, is fourth state matter, having, like
our gross matter, its own "protyle." There are several
"protyles" in Nature, corresponding to the various planes
of matter. The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane
of mind (manas, the fifth state matter), as also that of
Buddhi (sixth state matter), are each and all evolved from one
of the six "protyles" which constitute the basis of
the Object-Universe. The three "states," so-called of
our terrestrial matter, known as the "solid," "liquid,"
and "gaseous," are only, in strict accuracy, SUB-states.
As to the former reality of the descent into the physical, which
culminated in physiological man and animal, we have a palpable
testimony in the fact of the so-called spiritualistic "materializations."

In all these instances a complete temporary mergence of the astral
into the physical takes place. The evolution of physiological
Man out of the astral races of early Lemurian age --
the Jurassic age of Geology -- is exactly paralleled by the "materialization"
of "spirits" (?) in the seance-room. In the case of
Professor Crookes' "Katie King," the presence of a physiological
mechanism -- heart, lungs, etc. -- was indubitably demonstrated!!

This, in a way, is the ARCHETYPE of Goethe. Listen
to his words: "Thus much we should have gained . . . all
the nine perfect organic beings . . . (are) formed according
to an archetype which merely fluctuates more or less in its
very persistent parts and, moreover, day by day, completes and
transforms itself by means of reproduction." This is a seemingly
imperfect foreshadowing of the occult fact of the differentiation
of species from the primal astral root-types. Whatever
the whole posse comitatus of "natural selection," etc.,
etc., may effect, the fundamental unity of structural plan
remains practically unaffected by all subsequent modifications.
The "Unity of Type" common, in a sense, to all the animal
and human kingdoms, is not, as Spencer and others appear to hold,
a proof of the consanguineity of all organic forms, but
a witness to the essential unity of the "ground-plan"
Nature has followed in fashioning her creatures.

To sum up the case, we may again avail ourselves of a tabulation
of the actual factors concerned in the differentiation
of species. The stages of the process itself need no further comment
here, being the basic principles underlying organic development,
than to enter on the domain of the biological specialist.

-------

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 738 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES,
ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE.BASIC ASTRAL PROTOTYPES PASS INTO THE PHYSICAL.

-------

B.

THE EUROPEAN, PALAEOLITHIC RACES.
-- WHENCE, AND HOWDISTRIBUTED.

IS Science against those who maintain that down to the
Quaternary period the distribution of the human races was widely
different from what it is now? Is Science against those who, further,
maintain that the fossil men found in Europe -- although having
almost reached a plane of sameness and unity from the fundamental
physiological and anthropological aspects which continues till
this day -- still differ, sometimes greatly, from the type of
the now existing populations. The late Littre confesses it in
an article published by him on the Memoir called Antiquites
Celtiques et Antediluviennes by Boucher de Perthes (1849)
-- in the Revue des Deux Mondes (March 1,1859).
He says in it (a) that in these periods when the Mammoths,
exhumed with the hatchets in Picardy, lived in the latter region,
there must have been an eternal spring reigning over all the terrestrial
globe*; nature was the contrary of what it is now -- thus leaving
an enormous margin for the antiquity of

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* Scientists now admit that Europe enjoyed in the Miocene times
a warm, in the Pliocene or later Tertiary, a temperate
climate. Littre's contention as to the balmy spring of the Quaternary
-- to which deposits M. de Perthes' discoveries of flint implements
are traceable (since when the Somme has worn down its valley many
scores of feet) -- must be accepted with much reservation. The
Somme-valley relics are post-glacial, and possibly point
to the immigration of savages during one of the more temperate
periods intervening between minor ages of Ice.

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 739 AFRICA IN EUROPE.

those "periods"and then adds:
(b) "Spring, professor of the Faculty of Medicine
at Liege, found in a grotto near Namur, in the mountain of Chauvaux,
numerous human bones 'of a race quite distinct from ours.'"

Skulls exhumed in Austria offered a great analogy with those of
African negro races, according to Littre, while others, discovered
on the shores of the Danube and the Rhine, resembled the skulls
of the Caribs and those of the ancient inhabitants of Peru and
Chili. Still, the Deluge, whether Biblical or Atlantean,
was denied. But further geological discoveries having made Gaudry
write conclusively: "Our forefathers were positively contemporaneous
with the rhinoceros tichorrhinus, the hippopotamus major";and add that the soil called diluvial in geology "was
formed partially at least after man's apparition on earth"
-- Littre pronounced himself finally. He then showed the necessity,
before "the resurrection of so many old witnesses,"
of rehandling all the origins, all the durations, and added
that there was AN AGE hitherto unknown to study "either at
the dawn of the actual epoch or, as I believe, at the beginning
of the epoch which preceded it."

The types of the skulls found in Europe are of two kinds, as is
well known: the orthognathous and the prognathous, or the Caucasian
and the negro types; such as are now found only in the African
and the lower savage tribes. Professor Heer -- who argues that
the facts of Botany necessitate the hypothesis of an Atlantis
-- has shown that the plants of the Neolithic lake-villagers are
mainly of African origin. How did the latter come to be
in Europe if there was no former point of union between Africa
and Europe? How many thousand years ago did the seventeen men
live whose skeletons were exhumed in the Department of the Haute
Garonne, in a squatting posture near the remains of a coal fire,
with some amulets and broken crockery around them, and in company
with the bear spelaeus, the Elephas primigenius, the
aurochs (regarded by Cuvier as a distinct species), the Megaceros
hibernicus -- all antediluvian mammals? Certainly at a most
distant epoch, but not one which carries us further back than
the Quaternary. A much greater antiquity for Man has yet to be
proved. Dr. James Hunt, the late President of the Anthropological
Society, makes it 9,000,000 years. This man of science, at any
rate, makes some approach to our esoteric computation, if we leave
the first two semi-human, ethereal races, and the early Third
Race out of the computation.

The question, however, arises -- who were these Palaeolithic men
of the European quaternary epoch? Were they aboriginal, or the
outcome of some immigration dating back into the unknown past?
The latter is the only tenable hypothesis, as all scientists agree
in eliminating Europe from the category of possible "cradles
of mankind." Whence, then, radiated the various successive
streams of "primitive" men?

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 740 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.

The earliest Palaeolithic men in Europe -- about whose origin
Ethnology is silent, and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly
known, though expatiated on as "ape-like" by imaginative
writers such as Mr. Grant Allen -- were of pure Atlantean and
"Africo"-Atlantean stocks.* (It must be borne in mind
that by this time the Atlantis continent itself was a dream of
the past.) Europe in the quaternary epoch was very different from
the Europe of to-day, being then only in process of formation.
It was united to N. Africa -- or rather what is now N. Africa
-- by a neck of land running across the present Straits of Gibraltar
-- N. Africa thus constituting a species of extension of Spain,
while a broad sea washed the great basin of the Sahara. Of the
great Atlantis, the main bulk of which sank in the Miocene, there
remained only Ruta and Daitya and a stray island or so. The Atlantean
connections of the forefathers** of the Palaeolithic cave-men
are evidenced by the upturning of fossil skulls (in Europe) reverting
closely to the West Indian Carib and ancient Peruvian
type -- a mystery indeed to all those who refuse to sanction
the "hypothesis" of a former Atlantic continent to bridge
the ocean (Cf. "Scientific and geological proofs of the reality
of several submerged continents"). What are we also to make
of the fact that while de Quatrefages points to that "magnificent
race,"the TALL Cro-Magnon cave-men and the Guanches
ofthe Canary Islands as representatives of one type
-- Virchow also allies the Basques with the latter in a
similar way? Professor Retzius independently proves the relationship
of the aboriginal American dolichocephalous tribes and
these same Guanches. The several links in the chain of
evidence are securely joined together. Legions of similar facts
could be adduced. As to the African tribes -- themselves diverging
offshoots of Atlanteans modified by climate and conditions --
they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which made the Mediterranean
an inland sea. Fine races were many of these European cave-men;
the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be expected, progress
is almost non-existent through the whole of the vast period
allotted

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* "Whence they (the old cave-men) came, we cannot tell"(Grant Allen).

"The palaeolithic hunters of the Somme Valley did not
originate in that inhospitable climate, but moved into Europe
fromsome more genial region -- (Dr. Southall "Epochof the Mammoth"p. 315).

** The pure Atlantean stocks -- of which the tall quaternary
cave-men were, in part, the direct descendants -- immigrated into
Europe long prior to the Glacial Period; in fact as far back as
the Pliocene and Miocene times in the Tertiary. The worked
Miocene flints of Thenay, and the traces of Pliocene man discovered
by Professor Capellini in Italy, are witnesses to the fact. These
colonists were portions of the once glorious race, whose cycle
from the Eocene downwards had been running down the scale.

[[Vol. 2, Page]] 741 A TARDY ADMISSION.

by Science to the Chipped Stone-Age.* The cyclic impulse downwards
weighs heavily on the stocks thus transplanted -- the incubus
of the Atlantean Karma is upon them. Finally, Palaeolithic
man makes room for his successor -- and disappears almost entirely
from the scene. Professor Lefevre asks in this connection: --

"Has the Polished succeeded the Chipped Stone-Age by an imperceptible
transition, or was it due to an invasion of brachycephalous Celts?
But whether, again, the deterioration produced in the populations
of La Vezere was the result of violent crossings, or of a general
retreat northwards in the wake of the reindeer, is of little moment
to us." He continues: --

"Meantime the bed of the ocean has been upheaved, Europe
is now fully formed, her flora and fauna fixed. With the taming
of the dog begins the pastoral life. We enter on those polished
stone and bronze periods, which succeed each other at irregular
intervals, which even overlap one another in the midst of ethnical
fusions and migrations. . . . The primitive European populations
are interrupted in their special evolution and, without perishing,
become absorbed in other races, engulfed . . . by successive waves
of migration overflowing from Africa, possibly from a lost
Atlantis [?? far too late by aeons of years] and from prolific
Asia . . . all FORERUNNERS OF THE GREAT ARYAN
INVASION" (Fifth Race).

[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------

* The artistic skill displayed by the old cave-men renders the
hypothesis which regards them as approximations to the "pithecanthropus
alalus" -- that very mythical Haeckelian monster -- an absurdity
requiring no Huxley or Schmidt to expose it. We see in their skill
in engraving a gleam of Atlantean culture atavistically
re-appearing. It will be remembered that Donnelly regards
modern European as a renaissance ofAtlantean civilization.
("Atlantis," pp. 237-264.)